Another reminder why Congressman Cline dreads holding in-person town halls open to all his constituents.
An account of a meeting with Cline by Rodney Grandon in The Winchester Star.
My spouse, daughter-in-law, and I recently met with Congressman Ben Cline at his Winchester office. We appreciate the opportunity to share our concerns with Cline, and to hear directly from the congressman.
We were left, however, with the solid impression that as a “conservative in a conservative district” (paraphrasing Cline) he is indifferent to the current chaos unleashed by the Trump administration and to the adverse impact Republican budget plans will have on the 6th Congressional District.
Given limited time with Congressman Cline, we focused on three issues: (1) the adverse impact of Trump’s executive actions and the current defunding plans floated by the White House and Congressional Republicans; (2) the specific impact of Republican spending plans on vulnerable women and children (proposed cuts to Medicaid being among the most hurtful); and (3) Trump’s attack on the Rule of Law.
Among our takeaways: Mr. Cline supports the terror campaign launched by the Trump administration against the federal workforce. He noted that the speed of the cuts was more important than having a merit-based, strategic focus for resizing the federal workforce. While he seemed willing to offer constituent services to those who have lost or may lose their jobs, he is not going to do anything to protect his constituents from Trump’s whims. The question remains whether Cline will step up when the lack of talent crashes the functioning of critical government services.
Cline remains committed to gutting expanded access to health care through Medicaid, a successful initiative under the Affordable Care Act. His position seems particularly callous, noting a recent report from VPM that “one-third of Virginia’s rural hospitals are operating in the red.” That report further explained that these rural hospitals “serve populations that are older, with higher rates of chronic illness and poverty. Many of their patients have a greater reliance on government-funded health insurance programs like Medicaid and Medicare . . . .” Moreover, he seems uninterested in the health care challenges specific to women and children (e.g., access to maternity care and nutrition programs).
Concerning the Rule of Law, Cline trumpets the Trump line: “activist” judges are inappropriately halting Trump’s assaults on our Constitution. Cline ignores the fact that those judges were appointed by, among others, Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Trump himself. The reality is, as many courts have concluded, Trump’s assault on the personal freedoms of our citizens, law firms, universities, federal agencies, federal contractors and grant recipients, and on non-citizens (to name but a few of his targets), are unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful, frequently lacking any factual or legal foundation for the attack. (For example, using the Alien Enemies Act to deport people in the complete absence of any war or falsely claiming “national emergencies.”)
Trump’s goal is to accumulate executive power at the expense of our nation’s people and institutions. No president, whether Republican or Democrat, should have such unfettered power. If Cline really supports the Rule of Law, he needs to turn his sights on the dangerous excesses of the Trump administration.
Cline Watch 